This post is the second in a series during the month of December 2016, where we are reflecting on the things — issues, movements, and ideas — that give us a reason for existing here at Interference Archive. Read our first post, on women’s movements, here.

Labor organizing

Part of the history of society is the struggle of power, wages, and work. Worker campaigns have empowered people to fight against capitalist oppression, humanize brutalizing systems of labor, and their stumbles provide valuable lessons for future organizing.

At Interference Archive, reflecting on archival evidence of this struggle gives us a framework for looking at current actions. Keeping this history alive is critical for us; it provides an excellent example of how current organizing does not exist in a vacuum, but rather carries on a long legacy of hard work.

— Vero Ordaz

From the archive:

Browsing the pamphlets in our collective gives us a great overview of the work that’s been done by labor organizers. Here’s a small selection.

Industrial Workers of the World, Preamble and Constitution, organized July 7, 1905.